In previous patented designs, there have been a large variety of modular building panels including pre-fabricated panels of many types. A common type of building panel includes a pair of planar surfaces consisting of sheet metal skins, interspersed with a polymer foam such as polyurethane or polystyrene; which results in a panel of light weight. Other panels have been designed with a honeycomb material within the planar skins, to create a lightweight panel with great insulation values.
There have been presented a wide variety of methods for the attachment between the pre-fabricated panels of these kinds. They generally involve a tongue and groove interlocking mechanism in which a tongue is introduced into a groove along the two coincident or abutting edges of two panels, and then locked together. Given that the tongue and groove are typically metal, techniques for a good seal against air flow have been designed including a variety of rubberized seals and caulks.
Typical patents of previously designed panels having a variety of panel-to-panel edge connection schemes for coincident or abutting edges, are described in the U.S. patents to Glaros (U.S. Pat. No. 3,535,844), wherein the tongue and groove connecting mechanism is used. A second patent to Glaros (U.S. Pat. No. 3,469,873) describes other means of connecting planar coincident panels. In the patent to Martin (U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,498) similar panels are interconnected with a connecting fastener clip which is bolted into the framework and which fits inside the groove of one of the coincident edge panels enabling a tongue to slide into it from the other coincident edged panel.
The Porter patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,981) defines a roof panel connection mechanism in which coincident edge panels have off-setting edges which mesh to interlock the panels, which are then sealed through the use of threaded fasteners introduced through a pair of engaging tongues, one of each pair from each of the coincident or abutting edges of the two panels. The Finch patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,590)describes the panel interconnections for a partition wall structure, in which the abutting edges of two panels are interconnected and secured by fasteners which are threaded through the interconnected edges.
The Thompson patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,897) uses a snap action wall panel design, based on clips bolted to a support for holding a wall panel to a spaced supporting framework, and includes a sealing mechanism between coincident panel members. The Wang patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,112) defines the attachment for two coincident and interconnected plastic planks to a supporting framework using a threaded fastener passing through the meshed tongues of the two abutting planks. The Bowersox patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,257) describes a modular wall structure in which coincident panels with meshed tongues are linked together by a fastener which passes through the two tongues and caulks the abutting edged of the two panels, for a complete seal.
In reference to U.S. Pat. No. 5,373,678, it deals with panels with reinforced edge connection with male and female connectors. The basic structure of the panel is similar to all other panels where they used polystyrene as the core filler but rely solely on the abutting panels to supply the structural strength required.